Warlords of Draenor - Skies
Today we are taking a look at some of the new skies in Warlords of Draenor. Keep in mind this is still early alpha, so many of them may not be complete!

Blizzcon 2014 Tickets on Sale Saturday
Blizzcon 2014 Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST / 7 PM CET on Eventbrite. This year they will cost $199 plus taxes and fees for the November 7th - 8th event in Anaheim. If you aren't sure who is going, you have until June 6th to change the name and email addresses of attendees.

BlizzCon Ticket Sales - More Information

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker)

As a reminder, the second batch of BlizzCon General Admission tickets goes on sale Saturday, May 10 at 10 a.m. PDT. If you're interested in attending, you might want to take a look at our ticket-purchasing info blog to find out what information you'll need to have ready, or read our detailed walkthrough of the process. Remember there is a 4-ticket-per-household limit for General Admission tickets, and a 2-ticket limit for Benefit Dinner tickets.

We also asked Eventbrite to provide some additional details on how their waiting-room system works to help you get a better understanding of what to expect for the upcoming sales—here’s what they had to say:

The waiting room is enabled for high-demand events such as BlizzCon to seamlessly allow the first few thousand ticket buyers to complete their transactions within the registration time window. Keep in mind that being in the waiting room doesn't necessarily mean you’re guaranteed tickets. As ticket buyers complete or abandon transactions, or if they do not complete registration in time, the same number of ticket buyers will be selected from the waiting room for a chance to purchase tickets. If your turn arrives before the initial allotment of tickets has been fully claimed, you will be moved from the waiting room directly into the checkout process.

Those who come to the site after the initial allotment of tickets has been claimed will no longer be allowed in the waiting room. For those who are still in the waiting room after this point, if your requested number of tickets becomes available because other customers abandoned their purchases, you will be moved from the waiting room directly to the checkout process. In some cases, due to a variety of factors the system may attempt to move you from the waiting room to the checkout and realize that the number of tickets you selected is not available at that moment. In that case, you’ll be moved to the event page, but you will still be able to refresh your browser to try to purchase tickets before others who were not in the waiting room, and/or change the number of tickets you’d like to request. If the quantity you requested is now available, you will proceed directly to the checkout process.

It's also worth noting that the default ticket quantity you'll see upon arriving at the page for BlizzCon is zero (0), so you'll need to make a selection before you click Order Now.

ClassesWhat purpose does spell pushback still serve in the game? Most players don't enjoy +1-3 sec casts with hunter pet/npc on them.
That explicitly IS its purpose. Also, it's not that long anymore. (Celestalon)sorry, rephrase, *why do the passive pushback reductions only apply to damage spells, not healing touch, flash heal, etc?
They don't. We removed the passives, and reduced all pushback, game-wide, by 70%. (Celestalon)In MoP? or are you talking about WoD? I remember recently being in arena and having +1 sec added to a cast by hunter pet.
Yes, I'm talking about Warlords. (Celestalon)

what is the new value for rogues energy regen in wod please? (energy gain /sec)
Unchanged (10/sec, baseline). (Celestalon)

Can i get a confimartion please?
Well, you can multidot with Serpent Sting, yes. (Celestalon)

How is it balanced or reasonable for hunters to have the mobility of a melee while being a ranged DPS?
Because what matters at the end of the day (DPS-wise) is the damage that they dealt, just as with all specs. (Celestalon)But isn't melee vs ranged in general balanced by the fact melee has to move out of range more often, etc?
That's why I said 'more like Melee', not 'exactly like Melee'. They can function differently from everyone else. (Celestalon)I fear either they will be like MoP locks -completely OP or their stationary DPS will have to be so poor to balance it
It's definitely a concern that we recognize is legitimate, and we're going to be careful about that. (Celestalon)

The devs are happy that hunters can do belts every turn while ignoring the debuff, right?
It was not originally intended that that be possible, but were OK with letting that stay possible. (Celestalon)

Mage (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Will anything be done about the reaction window to use Inferno Blast? Maybe lower haste, less proc stacking will be sufficient?
There actually are some special things going on under the hood to make sure that if you just trust it to work in time, it will. (Celestalon)
I'd recommend that even if you feel like it's a problem, that the window is too tight/etc, try it as fast as you can anyway; it'll work (Celestalon)

Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)I thought surging was going to be better in WoD - it's coefficient is now below even Mists. Change of heart?
Not a change of heart. The big picture is hard for you to see, still. Soothing is similar to Heal; Surging is similar to... (Celestalon)
... (FlashHeal-Heal). Or, in other words, (Soothing+Surging) is similar to FlashHeal. (Celestalon)

Lots of people are having impression that it will be 100% conversion of dps to healing and just as good as MW.
No. If a Mistweaver does 100% Healing, and a Windwalker does 100% DPS, then a Fistweaver will do somewhere around 50%/50%. (Celestalon)Fistweaving is an official term. Love it
It's widespread enough in the vernacular that we're comfortable using it, especially for more casual discussion as this (Celestalon)
(We're players of this game too, remember. For example, most of us say "BoP", even though it's been "HoP" for years.) (Celestalon)

Also, some MW are wondering right now and would like this put to rest. Serpent stance - melee mechanic immune or not?
All Mistweavers, regardless of stance, will count as melee for the purposes of creature abilities that target based on that. (Celestalon)

Priest (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Care to elaborate? I am watching history repeat itself. SPriests to become "premium" class in terms of re-gemming expenses.
Most classes have to adjust their gearing focus to swap specs/playstyles; Shadow is far from unique in that. (Celestalon)

Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)If Shadowstep was put back to baseline, we would need a new filler? BoS is prio picked, but it isn't the solution to the problems.
We buffed that entire row in 5.4. I'm not convinced their mobility is that bad. (holinka)

Even now Elemental is middle-pack among dps specs in SoO. I wonder what drove you to apply the Lightning Bolt nerf for WOD?
Remember that a spec's location on the damage meters in Mists is basically zero indication of where they'll be in Warlords. (Celestalon)

don't understand why EQ survived ability pruning. Isn't the idea of pruning is to lose useless spells that clunked up the class?
We chose instead to make Earthquake very good. (Celestalon)

Warlock (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Bake the direct damage into the periodic & make it instant cast.
Yes, that would successfully turn Immolate into Corruption. But why? (Celestalon)Did making Corruption instant cast turn it into Agony? Same reason.
No, but giving it Agony-style stacking would. And what reason? (Celestalon)

I'm sure you guys underestimated how often walorcks need Soulshatter in raids. That spell is really useful. Please, reconsider.
Everything is always under reconsideration. None of our changes are final at this point; beta raid testing will tell us more. (WatcherDev)

Warrior (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)With the changes arent u afraid prot warriors are gonna get squeezed out of raids due to not bringing any raid tools anymore?
We're reducing stackable raid utility across the board, not just for prot warriors. (Celestalon)

since Interrupting shout and pummel share the same CD, why not merge them? BAM gained a button slot
Because that's a huge buff. (Celestalon)i don't understand, why? you could just use interrupting shout for every interrupt even if single opponent.
They have different cooldowns. (Celestalon)

Why u removed Shield wall ? its an iconic ability . and really Warriors dont have more def cds than others (dps Wars)
We buffed Die by the Sword instead. You don't need two shieldwalls. (Celestalon)dbts its 2 min cd and its not enough. thats why shield wall got buffed to 3 min cd instead of 5 min early in the Xpac @Celestalon
...so you're saying that Die By the Sword is better? And got buffed further? Yep... (Celestalon)

bzrkr stance: each time you take dmg in this stance you gain 1% damage for 15 sec. stacks to 15. (3 sec cd)
this is a bad design as it encourages standing in fire to increase dps (holinka)

Character / ItemsAny chance of Isle Bigger Bag achieve going acct wide in 6.0 or am I stuck shunning alts for the rest of MoP?
Not likely - unfortunately a technical limitation. We have a workaround for e.g. "kill 100k players" but that won't work here. (WatcherDev)So I'm stuck playing a character I don't like because they're further on this awful achievement. Good to know.
I'm not really going to defend that achievement - it's problematic; would be different if it were a FoS like Insane. (WatcherDev)

is the dark shamans transmog being removed from SoO in WoD along with the heirlooms?
No - the Feats of Strength and heirlooms are about it. And Heroic mount droprate reduced when Warlords is released. (WatcherDev)

Taking things away from players in old raids makes your day? There is literally no reason to remove garrosh heirlooms.
99.9% of content is permanent. The stuff we remove or scale back is the extra reward for doing it while current. (WatcherDev)

.Time to put garrosh heirlooms in lfr? They served their purpose in flex and above. Why force people back to old content in WoD?
The Garrosh heirlooms are specifically a reward for doing Flex+ while relevant. They won't be available once Draenor unlocks. (WatcherDev)Does this mean the items will be removed or just won't be dropped anymore?
The latter - we don't remove items you've earned. (WatcherDev)

PvEIs it possible that the enrage timers in LFR will be less harsh on LFR groups?
In general, berserk timers shouldn't be a factor in LFR barring mass deaths. I'll take a look at recent Garrosh stats. (WatcherDev)I'm not sure Berserk even has a purpose in LFR. Maybe in case of geared, unkillable tanks making a wipe last forever?
More or less. Avoids limping slowly towards a wipe that could take 15 minutes as most people lie there unable to act. (WatcherDev)

Any chance of making wands not use a GCD if I accidently right-click the target. Wish I could use wands without interupting GCD.
No, because then wands would be mandatory, and become part of your rotation. (Celestalon)

What's your opinion of the difficulty spike at the end of Siege? Everything up to Thok were mild with the last 3 being brutal.
On Heroic? The Thok->Siegecrafter jump used to be excessive but hotfixes helped there. It starts ramping right after Nazgrim, IMO. (WatcherDev)

the first few bosses had no curve. it was if you could beat 1, you could beat em all, curve started nazgrim
A curve that you outgear/outskill tends to feel like a flat line. Doesn't mean it is one. (WatcherDev)

PvPWill you be able to que up for 2s 3s and 5s for skirmishes or just one? Which?
We aren't having 5s skirmishes. No definitive answer on queuing for multiple right now. (holinka)

have u considered solo q for Rated Arena ? arena is great but finding teamates its almost imposible . ( 2k cr player ) ideas? @holinka
We made Arenas cross realm and we're building Group Finder to help players find each other. Players can solo queue for Skirmish. (holinka)

any chance on removing conquest for RBG losses. It's ruined RBG's. Nothing but YOLO groups and unskilled players.
No & I strongly disagree it's "ruined" RBGs. Those "unskilled" players you want to shut out may grow into better players now. (holinka)

Will Ashran have the same type of pvp hub daily set up as Isle of Thunder did? Because you guys did great with that design for pvp.
tell me more about what you liked (holinka)

how will player health pool interact with PvP ilvl? Does my hp go up from ilvl increase after I get in combat?
the % health stays the same when your HP increases (holinka)

Hi there will we ever see the return of elite gear for pvp with increased stats? maybe a ladder for elite gear and one for normal?
No plans to. It made it too tough to overcome that particular rating milestone as everyone above it had a gear advantage. (holinka)okay how about any kind of rewards for pvp we could earn a little gold on? I only play pvp and i am broke on gold, ty for answer
Yes certainly. PvP will provide some new rewards that can help you generate income. You won't be rich from just doing PvP tho. (holinka)

with the amount of CC being reduced, what's being done about DKs being able to have ~4 CC avoidance/removal abilities?
We're going to evaluate CC breaks. 2 of those are specific (stun/fear) and 2 of them are talents. (holinka)Thank god Any chance they'll become proactive instead of reactive?
Hardcore players like the proactive immunities. Average player doesn't understand why an immunity doesn't break the CC. (holinka)

bgchat, you really need some attention. Adding to the list. (holinka)If you filter out idiot, noob, push, and group the chat would probably be completely silent.
It feels necessary to give personality to the players on the other side of the internet...but some personalities aren't great. (holinka)

with duel ilvl PvP gear can I put a dot/hot on a player target for an ilvl boost while doing dailies?
sure. Don't get mad if they kill you. (holinka)what about hots
only if the target is in PvP combat (holinka)

will season to season item level jumps be reasonable in WoD?
One of the nice benefits of the dual item level design is we can set the PvP ilevels of different tiers more reasonably. (holinka)Will this in some way also help with the multiple ilvls of pve gear per tier? Like now we have 4 pve vs 2 pvp sets
Yes. So for instance, the lowest tier could get a 40 ilevel boost while the highest tiers gets a 20 ilevel boost. (holinka)
By which I mean lowest/highest PvP tiers. (holinka)

Any chance at locking our specs once we enter a bg so this doesn't happen?Defeats the purpose of roll check http://t.co/qnvYxC6VNJ
Yes, in Warlords, when the queue pops, you will have a role selected. You can only play specs of that role. (holinka)so you won't be able to choose 2 or all 3 like you can now? You either choose 1 or the other & then are locked into that role?
You can choose 2 or 3, but whatever the system comes back with is what you have to play. If you don't want to heal don't queue heal (holinka)Can you be assigned a role that neither of your specs can perform? I don't think anyone should be able to queue for all 3.
you can only select roles that your specced for (i.e. If you're enhance & elemental, you can't pick heals) (holinka)

WorldRespawn rates on the Timeless isle are just awful. Took my rogue out there and gave up 20 minutes with one tag.
I'd argue that the health scaling was inadequate for the player amount, compounding the problem. We've got better scaling now (Muffinus)

GarrisonsGarrisons not account wide currently. Could "found" FOLLOWERS at least be account wide? (with exclusions, like achieves)
Sometimes you have to choose one or another, and they have different abilities, feels meaningful per-character atm. (Muffinus)

Can we have a few alliance vs horde skirmishes with npcs.
Would love to do this, we'll see if we have time, maybe later in the expac as a new pvp thing ??? (Muffinus)
It's the very core of Ashran's kit (holinka)
Holinka would build his garrison in Ashran if he could. It would be perpetually on fire. (Muffinus)

So garrisons stuck in Shadowmoon for alliance? That kind of sucks considering perpetual blue-darkness.. Especially for RP..
Aware of this concern, investigating skyboxes. We want it to be a place you feel great about, very conscious of the look. (Muffinus)I love it, but could garrisons have a special item/quest/vendor/reward to change the sky? Is that a lot of work?
That's a fun idea! We did weather-changing stones on Timeless Isle, could be something similar. (Muffinus)I think it could be neat to tie "cosmetic" ideas to certain buildings or followers. RP reasons if nothing else.
I, too, dream of a world where I can adorn each of my followers with a different fancy hat. (Muffinus)

Will you be able to invite other players to your Garrison still, or is that idea tossed?
You definitely will be able to. (WatcherDev)

With garrisons integrated to leveling, will i be forced to quest to unlock it? Or can i LFG level and get it eventually?
You'll get your garrison almost immediately upon arriving in Draenor. You can still develop it even if you LFG to 100. (WatcherDev)well that sucks...will questing to 100 make it develop faster?
Tons of benefits unlocked via level-up questing, but alternate ways to get them at max level. (WatcherDev)

World of Warcraft Arena World Championship at BlizzCon

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Eight of the top 3v3 Arena teams from around the globe will compete for a chance to face off in the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship, taking place November 7 and 8 at BlizzCon 2014 in Anaheim, California.

If you’re an Arena competitor, it’s time to hone your skills and get ready to fight hard for a spot in the event. We’ll be holding online qualifiers for North America (including SEA and ANZ) and Europe in the months to come—in order to be eligible, teams need to have an individual 3v3 Arena rating of 2,500 on the live realm by August 25, 2014 at 2 p.m. PDT. Further details about the qualification process for China, Korea, and Taiwan* will be announced at a later date.

If you’re a spectator, you’ll be able to catch all of the action live online even if you can’t make it to the show in person—stay tuned for more information.

Keep an eye on www.blizzcon.com for more details on the BlizzCon World of Warcraft Arena World Championship as they become available.
*Please note there will be no rating cutoff for China, Korea, and Taiwan. Additional information will be provided to players in these regions in the future.

WildStar - Open Beta Started
The Wildstar open beta is running now until May 18th! You can find more information on WildstarForums.

Wildstar's an amazing MMO, as the combat system is the most engaging I've ever experienced. If we were to compare difficulties in their respective genres, going from WoW to Wildstar is like going from Skyrim to Dark Souls, only it feels good and has many comical moments along the way. Nevertheless, players should NOT expect to find this game that fun and engaging until at least 10 (depending on your starting area). I didn't start dying often until 14 when I went to my second zone and found everything ranging between 15-17, and they could all two-hit me easily. Upon 15 you get your first adventure which is well and good, but the fun REALLY kicks in at 20 when you get your first dungeon and even quests have to be planned out if you have any hope of not dying to the same thing three to four times. With all that said:

Wildstar is not for the "this is too hard, give me my levels and gear" crowd. I would not ask much of the WoW audience to take part in the more difficult areas of the game. If you go in expecting to not die leveling up, you're in for a very bad time with this game. If you want engaging game-play and an entirely different experience starting at around 15-20 while maintaining the feeling of "I earned this through trial and error," this game is second to none. I'd highly suggest bringing a friend or four, since a lot of this game's nowhere near solo friendly.

Oh, yeah, and the housing's pretty goddamn amazing. It's like the Sims, only it's far more customizable and doesn't suck after an hour. It also has a gigantic place in the game if you're to maximize your raid's output or leveling experience.

Yeah, the game is really a different beast with a similar underlying feeling. It is nowhere near a clone of WoW ultimately.

I've already got it pre-purchased and ready to go. However I also have WoD pre-purchased. I am also playing FFXIV. How do I do it?

I don't. I just get bored with one and hop to the other for a while. Hence why it's nice to have choice rather than burn out.

Yep, am I the only one who finds it weird that they made such beautiful skies, better than any of the past expansions, only for us not to be able to view them? We will be grounded from the start, if not indefinitely, and we won't have any of those views running on the ground.

Yep, am I the only one who finds it weird that they made such beautiful skies, better than any of the past expansions, only for us not to be able to view them? We will be grounded from the start, if not indefinitely, and we won't have any of those views running on the ground.

You have the exact same view of the skybox regardless of where you are relative to the ground. Flying doesn't change that.

ESO isn't looking good and never was really. It'll likely be a niche game well before the year is over.

And don't even act like Wildstar and WoW are the same because if you've played them both you'd know otherwise.

- - - Updated - - -

I just buy the digital ticket. Pricey but not nearly as pricey as paying their ridiculous costs and then having to fend for airfare and hotel.

I've never been a fan of how they deal with these things.

I've been in the Wildstar beta for months but didn't play in in quite a while because I got bored of the standard quest system, even though its better than ESOs and there are tons of quests to do. The combat system is interesting but the spam of the same skill via keyboard (as if you would have to spam a button for auto attacks in wow) is a pain. Would be far better if you could bind it to the mouse buttons. (if they didn't already change it)

I played a few ESO beta weekends too and was bored from the very beginning, it's a slap into the the face of every Elder Scrolls fan and a mediocre game at best. The skill system is boring and the skills feel very week and/or gimmicky. Mages being forced to use staves like any other class using melee weapons or bows simply doesn't fell right.
Also funny how mobs still seem to drop 1 gold each like in the beta and many bugs didn't get fixed even though they were apparent for months in the beta with beta testers constantly pointing them out. Of cause it didn't help that we got to test the same beta build for months on end...

Wildstar is not for the "this is too hard, give me my levels and gear" crowd. I would not ask much of the WoW audience to take part in the more difficult areas of the game.

So very true. Even in the first adventure at 15 it slowly ramps up the difficulty as you go through it until you reach the final boss and you absolutely cannot be asleep at the wheel! This is not a game for most WoW players and I really hope most of them stay away from it. This tweet from developer Stephan Frost made it clear most WoW players would not thrive in this game: https://twitter.com/StephanFrost/sta...05512066281472

I just read a Reddit post asking if #Carbine would please tune down the difficulty for leveling dungeons in #WildStar.

But hey, ESO is different than WoW and Wildstar and therefor it must suck, deserves no attention, and deserves to be insulted.

I can remember a time when people were banned for asking for other MMOs to be discussed. Accept that this site is largely in Blizzard's pocket man, and check out ESO sites for info. Just a fact of life.

I think I know why the moons are all the same. Isn't it that the moons are at a Geosynchronous orbit, meaning that it stays exactly at one point in the sky traveling the same speed as the planet spins, above Shadowmoon, hence the eternal night? This would explain why the moons appear in exactly the same orbit around all of the skies.

I guess that would make sense, but the sun would have to be in geosynchronous orbit as well on the opposite side of the planet. That's not how the universe works unless the planet had massive gravity that would dwarf that of a star. There should always be day/night cycles. If there's no star, there shouldn't be any life.